"We try to be the live-and-let-live kind, especially when it comes to artworld spats, tantrums, bouts of paranoia, internecine shit-flingings, red-faced, bug-eyed spittle-fests, pissant stampings, hysterical finger-pointing, and other hissy fits, but someone must have really crossed the line to ruffle the always well-preened feathers of Javier Martínez, the astute, carefully understated blog-jockey over at autogiro.

Martínez took pronounced umbrage here at the much-discussed move by el Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR) to invite a television variety-show bombshell-poseur into its inner sanctum, to sell the museum to the tourist trade. Actually, to say “much-discussed” does not begin to describe the holding of noses, cries of disbelief, and barfing sounds that accompanied the announcement that catástrofe-y-disastre-loving María Celeste Arrarás (“Goat born with two heads in Aibonito!” “Comerío mother of ten crushed by toppling armoire!”) had created a segment on the museum for a program she hosts called “Great Taste,” which will be aired by the Travel Channel one of these days as part of a tour of la Isla del Encanto."

DRAMA ON EAST 71ST STREET The troubles of the Salander-O’Reilly Gallery, already bedeviled by lawsuits, have worsened [see Artnet News, Aug. 14, 2007]. Visitors to a scheduled opening at the gallery in the Forstman Mansion on 71st Street and Madison Avenue last night found the premises closed. A sheet of paper taped to the door indicated that a much-awaited Caravaggio exhibition and another show of "Masterpieces of Art" had been postponed. The centerpiece of the exhibition was Apollo the Lute Player, said to be by Caravaggio and valued at an impressive $100 million."Postponed" is an understatement. As security guards crowded the sidewalk and vans lined the Upper East Side streets, dozens of paintings were carted off from the gallery yesterday after the London dealer Clovis Whitfield, the major lender to the show, panicked and announced that disputes around the embattled gallery did not make him "feel secure."

Art dealer Larry Salander, who had operated his gallery there since late 2005, had hoped that sales from the two shows would cover the gallery’s mounting debts. Unpaid bills and charges of fraud had triggered more than 20 lawsuits from landlords, creditors and consignors.

On Monday, Oct. 15, 2007, Salander settled claims brought by two of those creditors. He agreed to hand over more than 600 paintings to settle a suit brought by Donald Schupak, a partner and investor in Renaissance Art Inc., an art fund that Salander formed with Schupak and his son, Andrew Schupak. (Schupak is the CEO of Triumph Apparel, which was formerly Danskin Inc.). The Schupaks obtained a court order to shut down the gallery on Oct. 11. As part of the settlement Monday, according to Schupak lawyer Barry Slotnick, the investors joined Salander in urging New York State Supreme Court judge Richard Lowe to allow the gallery exhibition to take place.

In the second settlement, hedge funder Roy Lennox of the New York firm Caxton Associates was awarded six works of art and the gallery’s library of books on fine art, on the provision that Salander would add cash and jewelry to the award if the library were assessed at a value of less than $1 million.

Judge Lowe ordered the gallery locked on Oct. 11 to prevent Salander from removing works of art from the premises. The court also ordered Salander to hire security guards to enforce the order. According to Slotnick, who visited the gallery last night, Salander-O’Reilly’s basement holds 619 Renaissance paintings.

Other prominent litigants have been lining up since late spring. According to reports, Salander is being sued by artist and former New York Observer publisher Arthur Carter for nonpayment, and by former tennis star John McEnroe for failing to double a $162,500 investment in five months. Aby Rosen, Salander’s landlord at the Forstman Mansion, is seeking back payment of the $183,000 monthly rent. Salander’s landlord at the gallery’s former space on 79th Street and Madison Avenue, Elaine Rosenberg, is suing for back rent and for the unpaid share of a painting in which she had invested.

Stuart Pivar, who sat on the sidewalk in front of the gallery yesterday in his 16th century carved walnut French wedding chair that he had just removed from the building, waited for transport across town. "I think I’m the only person who’s not suing him," he smirked.

In 31 years of operation, Salander has built critical respect and a strong clientele with sales of American modernists and Renaissance painting and sculpture. The dealer often spoke of introducing potential collectors on Wall Street to fields of art that were an alternative to the fashionable and often more expensive contemporary market.

Salander expected the "postponed" exhibitions to vindicate his approach. Paying his creditors would have been another thing. Skeptics among museum curators and dealers noted that the Apollo had sold at Sotheby’s in 1991 for $110,000 as a work from the "circle of Caravaggio," and questioned the reattribution. The painting is still for sale.

Salander had already announced that he plans to vacate the Forstman Mansion at the end of the year.

LIDKE SENTENCED IN SEATTLEMeanwhile, across the country, former Seattle art dealer Kurt Lidtke -- who owned an eponymous gallery in the city’s Pioneer Square district, and was known as one of the country’s foremost experts in Abstract Expressionist Mark Tobey -- was sentenced to 40 months in prison after being found guilty on 19 counts of first-degree theft and one count of failing to pay taxes. The convictions grew out of a complex web of double-dealings Lidtke engaged in between 1999 to 2004, wherein the dealer accepted paintings on consignment, then traded or sold them without compensating their owners, ultimately scamming in excess of $400,000. Lindke’s defense held that his behavior was explained by alcohol and cough syrup addictions, a claim given some credence by the bizarre nature of some of his dealings -- in one instance, Lidtke actually donated Tobey’s Portrait of Richard Odlin to Seattle’s Cornish College of the Arts, even though the painting had been consigned him to sell by Texas art collector James Clark.

"its 17-year nightmare under the reign of Thomas Krens. This self-styled shah of culture and franchising has been described as "cold, distracted and rarely on hand." I would add reckless, destructive, myopic and misguided."

On the last day of July, the art world awoke to a disturbance in the Force. The New York Times announced that Lisa Dennison, the director of the Guggenheim Museum since only 2005, would be leaving to become executive vice-president for Sotheby’s North America. Dennison wasn’t the best director around; she may have been only a puppet. But she was capably playing the role of Gerald Ford to this troubled institution, helping to bring the Guggenheim back from its 17-year nightmare under the reign of Thomas Krens. This self-styled shah of culture and franchising has been described as "cold, distracted and rarely on hand." I would add reckless, destructive, myopic and misguided.

Since Krens took over in 1988, the air around art at the Guggenheim has been distorted and toxic. Yet since he left his directorship in 2005 to run the Guggenheim Foundation, which oversees all five museums (New York, Venice, Berlin, Bilbao, Las Vegas), the institution has shown auspicious signs of actually putting his tenure behind it. Under Dennison, the specialized but scintillating collection of early-20th-century art was intelligently reinstalled so that batches of excellent women and lesser-known artists are featured alongside the big guns. Very good contemporary exhibitions have taken place, most recently this summer’s smart show of recent acquisitions and art from the permanent collection. Curated by Kevin Lotery, Ted Mann and Nat Trotman (under the supervision of Nancy Spector), this sampler was loaded with serendipitous juxtapositions, and showed the Guggenheim shunning spectacle and stressing art again. The soon-to-open Richard Prince survey could be really good, and this winter’s Cai Guo-Qiang retrospective, as well as other exhibitions in the works, are all good signs.

But something rotten is brewing. Krens has been up to his corrosive old tricks again. With breathtakingly bad timing last year, just days before Israel and Lebanon exploded into war, Krens announced that the Guggenheim would build a 300,000-square-foot edifice designed by architect Frank Gehry, on a spit of land called Saadiyat -- Arabic for "Isle of Happiness" -- in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. The Emirates also has plans to build a branch of the Louvre designed by Jean Nouvel, a maritime museum by Tadao Ando, and a performing-arts center by Zaha Hadid. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, dubbed "GuggAbu" last year by arts blogger Tyler Green, will sit atop a slender peninsula jutting into the Persian Gulf. The building is to be completed by 2011 at a cost estimated to be between $200 million and $400 million. Slated for construction nearby are dozens of luxury hotels, three marinas, two golf courses, high-end apartments and fancy villas. Crown Prince Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan says this $27 billion Sodom-plus-Vegas on the Persian Gulf is expected to draw three million tourists a year by 2015 and will be an "upscale cultural district."

At the time of the GuggAbu announcement, Gehry hadn’t even begun designing. Calling the building "a rush job," he opined, "It’s got to be something that will make sense here," adding, "I know it’s hot. Being situated on the seafront means we might have sandstorms." He should have added that being situated on this seafront also means it’s possible the whole peninsula will be under water in a hundred years. Perhaps those watching it go under will think that’s where this air-conditioned Xanadu belongs.

Krens notes that the UAE "has the resources" to build this project. He’s certainly right there. Abu Dhabi harbors nine percent of the world’s known oil reserves and four percent of its gas. However, it also harbors something else: a stringent anti-Israel policy. Numerous government sites warn that Israeli passport holders and travelers whose passports bear Israeli stamps will be denied entry visas to the Emirates. Thus, the Guggenheim -- founded by a Jewish family, an institution with Jewish curators and scores of works by Jewish artists, designed by the Jewish Gehry -- isn’t really welcome either. (Nor are other marginalized groups: Two years ago, a UAE government official said, "Our society does not accept queer behavior either in word or action." Maybe that means art by queers won’t be welcome in the GuggAbu.) As of July 2006, it was reported that no nudes were to be shown, nor anything deemed "controversial."

None of this fazes Krens. "This is a minor issue," he said last year. "Our challenge now is to define the next generation of Guggenheim museums." Actually, the word next is misleading because there was no earlier generation. Most of those either went belly-up or never materialized, in places like Taiwan, Rio de Janeiro, Singapore and St. Petersburg. The failed plan for Rio called for a tropical rainforest, a 100-foot waterfall, suspension bridges, and a sunken lobby with underwater views of a reflecting pool. Perhaps he’ll announce a Guggenheim Machu Picchu next, or a Guggenheim Great Wall.

The big success on which all this bluster is based is, of course, the Guggenheim Bilbao. That building does work, but only economically, as a tourist attraction, as a source of civic pride and a leverage tool for Krens. It looks like a shiny, undulating amusement-park ride from the outside. It’s great. The inside, however, is so oversize and jazzy that it is awful for art (except that of the artist who inspired much of Gehry’s thinking, Richard Serra). Krens and Gehry, great as they are as a team, should not build museums together -- not in Abu Dhabi, not anywhere. They should be given the contract to build every Wal-Mart in America. That would change the way American architecture looks and the way Americans look at architecture. Krens and Gehry would be heroes. America would be lucky.

In the late ‘80s, when he took over, Krens did some good. He brought the Guggenheim into the present after it had drifted for years. He sold some of the collection but was behind numerous important acquisitions, including the great Panza collection. Then he saw something before others. He understood that culture was going to be big business and that institutions like his could be franchised. He dreamed of shining museums on hills, and tried to build them. That was the beginning of the end.

Krens broke faith with art long ago. Now he crows about meeting with "business moguls, governors [and] mayors," and boasts, "In the last three years, more than 130 cities have made an initial inquiry into doing something like Bilbao." His traveling lecture is called "Developing the Guggenheim into a Global Brand." But under Krens the Guggenheim brand has been not art or exhibitions or even the collection but Building Buildings. And even that was a lie -- they were all Coming Soon, and in reality every one was Coming Soon But Never Comes.

Though I love the Guggenheim’s Frank Lloyd Wright mother ship on Fifth Avenue, one thing this museum has needed for years has been more wide-open, non-spiraling space in New York. Krens did open a SoHo branch in 1992, but it folded in 2001. (In a nice bit of symbolism, the building now holds a slick Prada store.) He also tried to have Gehry build a behemoth near the South Street Seaport, but that never worked out either. Then he switched back to his international aspirations. Thus, Krens’s world adventures aren’t just silly, sad, misspent and maddening; they’re tragic. Imagine if, instead of squandering the Guggenheim’s good name, and rather than pouring time and money into showy boondoggles around the globe, Krens had secured a large space somewhere in New York City, and created something like what the Tate did in London -- a sort of Guggenheim Modern for rotating shows and space for the permanent collection.

In his heyday, Krens was the one American museum director with the hubris, clout and drive to pull something like this off. His dictatorial power accomplished some good things, but at far too high a price. By now his so-called vision can be seen for what it is: a ruse masquerading as a wow. The only thing Krens did was mix Museum Mile with Broadway. Dreaming of blockbusters, he created palaces and high-concept productions dependent on one-time, out-of-town visitors. Krens accessorized the museum’s shell, but he neglected and betrayed art. The Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is just more of the same but on a grander scale. Krens ushered in the ill-begotten era of constructing glitzy trophy museums and then simply filling them with art. He and the ideology came in with Reagan; they should go out with Bush. It is time for the trustees and excellent curators of the beloved Guggenheim to complete the process they seemed to be initiating so admirably before Dennison’s ill-timed and egregious abdication, and together take back the rotunda and get rid of Krens.

WHO SHOULD GET THE JOBHiring a new director for the Guggenheim will be tricky. It will be extremely difficult for any candidate to unequivocally say, "Krens must go," if only because he’ll have a major hand in the hiring. Nonetheless, an independent-minded director is a necessity if the museum is to recover. The last director of the Guggenheim was a woman, and the next one should be, too. Four candidates come immediately to mind: the chief curator and associate director for programs at the Whitney Museum, Donna De Salvo; the current director of UCLA’s Hammer Museum, Ann Philbin; the departing director of the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Kathy Halbreich; and the Studio Museum in Harlem’s Thelma Golden.

Whoever takes the job must not do so without a number of ironclad agreements in place. Assuming the director can’t fire Krens outright (presumably only the board can do that), she must stipulate that she has control over appointing and releasing all board members and employees. She has to sign off on all activities and exhibitions in all present and future Guggenheims, constructing a legal firewall between Krens and the Guggenheim. He should not be allowed to take one dime of Guggenheim money for any project, and she should try to get out of the Abu Dhabi project. Krens must have no role beyond an advisory one -- and without payment, from either the museum or its trustees or other backers. If this new director can defang Krens, then -- and only then -- might there be a bright future at the Guggenheim.